‘We’re just Americans’: Over 300 migrants crossing into New Mexico reportedly detained by civilian ‘militia’

More than 300 migrants illegally crossing the border into New Mexico on Tuesday night reportedly found themselves walking into the arms of an armed group of U.S. civilians who call themselves “United Constitutional Patriots.”

The citizen patriot group is said to consist of New Mexico residents who are U.S. military veterans and ex-police officers, according to the Daily Mail.

“We’re just Americans. We’re veterans, we’re ex-law enforcement, we’re people that care about our national security,” said one member of the group, Jim Benvie. “We’re people that care about our strained Border Patrol.”

On Facebook, the United Constitutional Patriots describe themselves as, “Americans that believe in the constitution and the rights of every American that will stand up for their rights in unity and help keep America safe.”

Benvie said that he and others in the group have been camping out on the border for the last two months on the New Mexico-Chihauhua border. The hundreds of people walked out of the darkness directly into the civilian patriots’ base camp. The asylum seekers reportedly crossed through a fence gap in Sundland Park, New Mexico.

A Facebook video was live streamed as it happened. It shows the migrants giving themselves up to the patriot group. Their intent had been to find the Border Patrol to surrender to and to ask for asylum.

“We held them there until Border Patrol came,” said Benvie. “And once they came then we did what we do, and that’s to help Border Patrol get them to the processing van. So, everybody is safe.”

Officially, the Border Patrol does not endorse or condone the patriot group’s border enforcement actions.

Liberal media outlets that have picked up this story are referring to the citizen patriots as vigilantes and an armed militia group, seemingly implying that they are dangerous and lawless. Liberals on Twitter are in turn calling the volunteer citizens group fascists among other things. Never mind that the migrants came to them asking for help and they got it.

Obviously, the patriots’ compassionate treatment of the huge group that approached them blows that kind of baseless criticism out of the water.

Last month, the DHS acting secretary Kevin McAleenan visited the area and said the border has hit its “breaking point”. According to the El Paso Times the El Paso/New Mexico border sector is the second busiest location on the US-Mexico border.

The number of asylum seekers entering the U.S. now is unprecedented, according to McAleenan.

The number of migrants detained in the El Paso/New Mexico sector is not as numerous as in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas farther to the east, but the Border Patrol’s El Paso Sector has seen the fastest rate of growth.

McAleenan insisted Congress needs to come up with legislative solutions to expedite political asylum claims made by migrants. “The surge numbers are just overwhelming the entire system,” McAleenan said.

He estimated 10 to 15 percent of migrants have legitimate asylum claims, but it will take years for those claims to actually be heard in court.

Impoverished Central American nations are causing their people to seek economic refuge in the U.S., and that surge “is overwhelming the legitimate asylum system,” McAleenan said.

It is important to note that while up to 65 percent of border crossings are families with children who willingly surrender to agents, the rest are adults trying to evade capture, including some with criminal backgrounds, he said.